Ask Again Later (19 page)

We play two rounds. Then one more round for a tiebreaker. When I sit with him for a while, I always get stuck on the same thing. How did they let it slip away—our family? My family?

My father seems committed to making this last-ditch effort, to rein it all in, give it a tidy ending. He'd be a father who gave his daughter a job; he'd be the kind of guy who would visit his ailing ex-wife. It all just seems so sad and full of regret. Yet he doesn't seem sad; he seems rather content.

“What would you do differently? If reliving your life were possible?” I ask.

“Where do I start? I would have worked harder to make a life with your mom. Yet I'm not sure working harder would have changed anything. But allowing that relationship to fail, especially the way it failed—with you girls and so on,” Dad says.

I'm picturing a dam giving way, and things around it
collapsing. The water's reach is farther than you could ever expect.

“Thanks for waiting up for me, Dad,” I say. I don't say that I've always wanted to have a father wait up for me. “I'm sorry I was so late.”

Fake Accent

I CALL MARJORIE
because I come across a piece of paper that has her name and number on it, and I remember I'm supposed to call her, but I don't remember why I'm supposed to call. Because we're sisters? Because she's recently had a baby and people who have babies lose touch with people who don't have babies?

A woman with a rich European accent answers the phone. I'm thinking it has to be the baby nurse. Marjorie must be at the gym with her personal trainer, making her postbaby body even better than her prebaby body. But I thought the latest baby nurse was a quiet Colombian woman (a perk to hiring her, according to Marjorie, was that she didn't understand a word of English and therefore could not eavesdrop). This seemed like an odd consideration, as Marjorie has a track record that demonstrates little need for secrets.

“Doesn't that mean she also can't communicate with Poison Control?” I ask, concerned this hadn't occurred to Marjorie in her postnatal haze.

“You're such a worrier!” Marjorie says.

The woman answering the phone sounds as if she might be European royalty, though from what country she's spawned I cannot determine.

“Halo?” says this refined voice.

“May I please speak with Marjorie?” I ask.

Extremely long pause follows. Possibly she's inhaling a cigarette. Blowing adorable smoke rings into the baby's face?

“Hey, Em, it's me,” Marjorie says.

“Oh?” I say. “What's with the accent?”

If I hadn't asked the question, my sister would not have explained herself and would in fact have pretended she hadn't answered the phone in a foreign dialect. She is my mother's daughter so much more than I could
ever
be my mother's daughter.

“Oh, I'm dodging our super,” Marjorie says.

“You're a grown woman—you have a baby,” I say.

“Don't sound disappointed. It's judgmental. Besides, you
know
I'm crazy,” Marjorie says.

“Right. The proof just keeps on piling up,” I say. “I thought all of that would change when you became a mother. But you're able to produce a staggering amount of horseshit.”

“God gives everyone a unique gift,” Marjorie says.

“What did you do to the super? Or do I not want to know?” I ask.

“I saw a cockroach,” Marjorie says.

“Yes?” I say. It's New York City.

“I freaked out on his answering machine,” Marjorie says. “Actually, I was still kind of drunk this morning and overreacted. I had a real harpy rant: ‘What if it goes after the baby? You're responsible if it chases my precious son,'” Marjorie says, laughing.

“The super? Or the cockroach?” I ask. “Never mind, but I think you might be right about the baby nurse,” I say, remembering what I was supposed to call her about.

“Of course I'm right about the baby nurse—she really is a better mother than I could ever be,” Marjorie reasons.

Excellent point. Yet if you can see your deficiencies so clearly, can't you correct them?

“Thanks for checking in,” Marjorie says. “But I'm in a hurry. I'm about to meet Dory at Swiss Chalet; we're headed to St. Moritz, and I have a tire around my belly—and my ass—and I need some new ski clothing and some cigarettes.”

Dory is back on the payroll. She also has Marjorie on a strict postpregnancy diet of lemon water and cigarettes.

“Oh, okay. Who's watching Malcolm while you're away?” I ask.

“Baby nurse,” Marjorie says. “Unless you want to watch him.”

How did Marjorie pick and choose which of our
mother's personality quirks to keep in her version of motherhood? And how did she decide which odd behaviors should be replaced to create her own unique spin on raising a baby?

I hang up the phone. I imagine what kind of mother I'd be. I sometimes think motherhood might expose some of my better qualities. Patience. Affection. Storytelling. Why is it easier for me to imagine having a baby than having a relationship with Sam? I'm fantasizing about a relationship that doesn't allow me to have one foot out the door. That's a first.

Doctor/Patient Relationships

HE'S ALL MINE.
Except that he's also the woman's whose appointment is just before mine (head cast down, looks like she could be blown over by a strong gust of wind, but still pretty in a bookish way, which is a quality I suspect he'd really like). I hope for my sake he doesn't have to listen to her tales of sexual dysfunction. I hope instead it's something he wouldn't secretly find kind of appealing. Pyromania, for example.

She and I have something in common—which is scary. We're both kind of in love with Paul. I can tell by the way she leaves his office looking so territorial and reluctant. I remain forever grateful that I don't have to see the parade of his patients and measure myself against each one of them.

“What are you thinking?” Paul asks.

“Ask again later,” I say.

He waits a beat. “What are you thinking?” Paul asks again.

“I'd tell you, but you'd mock me,” I say.

“Mocking people can be very entertaining,” Paul says.

I consider it. I've had this question ricocheting around my brain for a few weeks now; when I was close to asking it, I'd wise up. It's a test: I want to see if he'll lie or tell the truth. Testing people is a terrible thing, and it's my compulsion.

“Okay,” I say. “Okay. Okay…yeah. Um, would you ever…hit on me? Like at a party or something?” I ask.

He smiles. “Patient-doctor relationships aren't ethical,” Paul says.

“If it were ethical, it'd hardly be exciting,” I say. Nitwit! “What I'm saying is, what if I wasn't your patient? Pretend we're total strangers and we meet at a party—then, would you hit on me?”

“Meeting you at a cocktail party—I'd be thinking that I'm twenty years older than you,” Paul says.

“And to your thinking that's a good thing or a bad thing?” I say.

He smiles.

“Okay, we're at a party, and I'm offering sex, no strings attached?” I say.

“It would be rude to say no to that,” Paul says.

I'm satisfied with this. I've begged the guy to hypo
thetically consider sleeping with me. And
I'm
satisfied? But he's not.

“The truth is, I'd be more likely to ‘hit on you' in real life. I know you. At a party, you'd just be one more person,” Paul says.

“You'd really hit on me?” I say incredulously. “You might want to investigate that self-destructive streak before the inquest. I like you. I really do. But I will not lie under oath.”

My conversations with him are always directed at the wrong person. I need to transfer this longing back where it belongs. To Sam. As safe as it is, I can't keep hitting on my shrink.

“I just realized what I've been doing,” I say. “I need to call Sam.”

“Good,” Paul says. “Are you going to?”

“Eventually,” I say. “We both know I like to put off the things that are good for me.”

“I've noticed. I wasn't sure you had,” Paul says.

“Yeah. Mammogram…Sam…” I say.

Finding Religion

IT'S EIGHT-THIRTY
on Sunday morning. I'm running out of the park, and walk over to Madison to pick up a post-jog latte to simulate that runner's high I've heard so much about. I see Marjorie. She looks great. If this were a year
ago, I'd assume she was dressed from the night before, and picking up a bagel on her way home to sleep it off. In the way that my mother is a morning person, my sister is the polar opposite.

“Hey!” I call.

“Hey, sweetie,” Marjorie says.

“You look great,” I say.

“It's the microdermabrasion. My cheeks feel like a baby's ass. And the spa offers child care!” Marjorie says, smiling. “Well, off to church!”

“Right,” I say, wink-wink,
“off to church.”

“Seriously,” Marjorie says.

“No,” I say. “No. I thought ‘church' was code for ‘sleep off hangover.' I'm surprised to see you awake and dressed.”

“That's what happens when you have a baby. Besides, we've found the Lord,” Marjorie says. “Who knew he'd be attending the city's hottest nursery school? We have to be model citizens for two years 'til he's in. We're greeters today.”

“Doesn't Little Malcolm have legacy status at at least two nursery schools?” I ask.

“Oh, honey, the world has changed. We need a safety school,” Marjorie says.

Marjorie has a baby, someone else to consider, and I don't. I do, of course—my mother. She is my emotional seat-filler. She gets to be the most important person in my
life until I get more courage and put an end to this procrastination.

Marjorie doesn't know where her child will be admitted to nursery school to play with blocks, meet tiny friends, and nap on linoleum. And she's apparently so consumed by it she's willing to greet people on the steps of the church on Sunday morning. Not bad for someone who would fail the simplest of drug tests.

I'm a lawyer. I can mount a defense for my procrastination. I mailed a postcard to Sam. I left a message for him just before my pizza date with Will. In each case, he didn't respond. I saw him having lunch with, gasp, a woman. When I called from the hospital, he was entertaining. These are all great reasons never to contact him again. Except they're actually not a defense at all but a string of pathetic excuses. Why would he respond to a postcard? All that postcard told him was that I haven't learned anything. I reach out from a distance. I keep myself planted safely far away. No risk. No return.

The Things We Do for Love

I'M IN THE KITCHEN
at the office. I am opening the fridge to put some milk away when I notice how out of order the whole inside is. I've seen the same yogurt in there for at least two weeks. I start tossing things out quickly, as if they are bombs about to explode. It's very satisfying. The riddance of things we don't need.

My father walks in. He puts a coffee cup in the sink. He looks inside the cabinet where we keep the trash bags. Then he looks over his shoulder, then back at the cabinet. He grabs several handfuls of small wastebasket-sized trash bags and shuffles them into the box of tall kitchen bags. There is some obvious muscle memory happening here—it's all very slick and practiced.

“Why do you do that?” I ask.

“What?” Dad says.

“Mess up all the trash bags and mix the different sizes together,” I say.

He considers whether he should tell the truth or pretend I am mistaken about what I just saw.

“So she knows I'm thinking about her,” Dad says.

“Why not just tell Wendy you're thinking about her?” I say.

“It's not how we do things,” Dad says.

I always thought my parents communicated on the indirect plane because they didn't know how else to communicate. I was half right. My mother never knew how to communicate, and my father was willing to live in her world and learn her strange language. The language rooted in strange acts of intimacy and no direct conversations whatsoever. They'd live happily if the world was an impressionist painting, not a realist painting. The same language he's using to seduce the fair Wendy.

Sharp Right Turn

WE'RE SEATED AT
his table at the Club. It's been several months since our first lunch here. There is a comfort in our routine. Every Friday: lunch, drinks, chat.

“This is nice, isn't it?” Dad says.

He reaches for my hand and squeezes it.

“Yes,” I say.

It is nice. No wonder I felt like a stranger growing up in my mother's house. My emotional compass more closely resembles my father's than my mother's.

He is eating a Cobb salad. He takes a sip of his martini.

He waves Martin the waiter over to the table.

“Marty, this doesn't taste good to me today. I'll have a wine spritzer,” Dad says.

“Right away, Mr. Rhode,” Martin says. He dashes off with the subpar beverage in hand. He moves swiftly, as if handing off a baton in a relay race.

“A spritzer? Kind of a girl drink, don't you think?” I say.

“Maybe so,” my father says, disconnected. Not playing along. “Maybe so.”

He takes a prescription bottle out of his jacket pocket. He puts a pill in his mouth and taps his fingers on the table. Because he's discovered that tapping his fingers ush
ers the medication into his bloodstream more quickly? The color drains out of his face.

“Are you okay?” I ask.